Exam halls could be insulated to stop mobile phone cheats

Students could be made to sit their exams in special rooms blocking mobile phone signals to stop them cheating.

The extraordinary move was suggested by a Government education expert called in to investigate the rocketing numbers of pupils cheating in exams.

Professor Jean Underwood was commissioned by the education watchdog, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, after more than 4,500 students were penalised for 'malpractice' last summer.

The figure - up 27 per cent on the previous year - showed one in four had been caught smuggling mobile phones into exam rooms.

It marked a worrying trend in pupils using the latest digital gadgets to crib answers during school exams.

As well as using their phones to call or text friends for answers or to access the Internet, they have been caught taking in MP3 players and tiny digital handheld devices like PDAs, or personal digital assistants combining phone and Internet functions.

Professor Underwood suggested introducing Faraday cages to block mobile phone signals into every school exam hall in the country would slash problems.

She said: "There is a rising fear that technology is fuelling this problem. There are enough people doing it to be worried.

"Technologically it would be relatively straightforward to stop mobile phones working. You put a Faraday cage around the exam room."

The cage would involve creating a metal surround or shield around the exam room, which blocks electromagnetic waves used by mobile phones from travelling.

Named after physicist Michael Faraday, it works by diverting electricity evenly around the shield instead of allowing it to flow into the interior and enabling devices to work.

Airplanes and cars act as Faraday cages from lightning strikes while lifts - where mobile phones rarely work - also act as shields.

Professor Underwood, who is based at Nottingham Trent University, said problems could arise if a child fell ill and invigilators could not raise help using their own mobiles.

She added: "There is a multitude of ways to cheat from writing on your cuffs, which does not use technology, to using PDAs and mobile phones.

"You can cover the whole course on an MP3 player - it does not have to play music. This is rising with really high-powered calculators which can store a lot more than calculations.

"My role was to look at what extent technology was the problem itself."

The QCA advises schools to ban mobile phones from exam rooms but devices are often so tiny, they can be sneaked in without teachers realising.

Officials commissioned Professor Underwood to carry out her Digital Technology and Dishonesty in Examinations and Tests report - due out later this year - after 1,100 pupils were caught with phones last year.

A total of 1,887 students smuggled cheating aides into exams - but there are fears the figure could be much higher as some devices may have gone undetected.

In one case a boy was caught when his mother rang him in the middle of an exam to find out how he was getting on.

The 2,300-pupil Tollbar Business and Enterprise College in New Waltham near Grimsby already uses handheld mobile phone detectors during exams.

Principal David Hampson said: "In the politically-correct society in which we live it is difficult to carry out a physical search on a child.

"With a handheld metal detector you do not make physical contact."

The problem is not simply restricted to schools.

A Daily Mail survey carried out last year found up to 20,000 university students were caught cheating by having exam answers sent to mobile phones, copying essays or buying them wholesale on the Internet.